It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

I am big on Christmas traditions - it is a wonderful time to tell and tell and tell about God's love for us and His gift of Jesus. So much symbolism in Christmas (yes, even in Christmas trees and candy canes).

Our tree is now up and we are ready to start our Jesse Tree advent on Sunday using Ann Voskamp's The Greatest Gift (I'm kind of a big fan of Ann's writings; highly recommend her book One Thousand Gifts [I've just reread it recently], and her blog). 

I loved this webcast on having a sane and sacred Christmas (watch it in the evening instead of tv one night?). There is a great explanation of what a Jesse Tree is at 36:24 if you don't have time to watch the whole webcast.

And I am looking forward to doing our Christmas shopping for Jesus with the kids using Gospel for Asia's and Christian Blind Mission's Christmas gift catalogues. (We don't buy these on our loved one's behalf instead of gifts - we buy them as gifts purely for Jesus, to celebrate His 'birthday'; the accompanying gift cards are opened and read on Christmas Day as our gifts to Him).

The 6th of December is Saint Nicholas Day. Voice of the Martyrs has a great book about who he is.

This is such a wonderful time of the year to really teach our children about God's love, and His gift of Jesus - and all that that means for us. Let us be intentional about celebrating with our children and teaching them what it is all about. The Christmas Story is romantic, and it is part of a bigger love story that started at the beginning of time.

* Christmas star topper and nativity set from Oxfam (highly recommend the Nativity Set - only $34.95, fair trade / ethically made, non-toxic and sustainable wood source)
* Koorong stocks both of Ann's books. Duck out and get The Greatest Gift to follow this Christmas? Jesse tree ornaments can be downloaded from her website, or you can make your own.

Caleb's Birthday

This week started with Caleb turning one year old! So incredible to think that a year has passed since he was born. Wonderful, wonderful times. I love my fast growing little boy.

Happy Birthday little man.

Celebrating My Marriage

Establishing family traditions is something I'm keen on (particularly when it comes to Christian celebrations), and an idea I came across a few months ago and have since been doing is celebrating our anniversary date each month. The 13th of each month is now the day Jonathan and I celebrate being married. I made some heart bunting that the girls help me hang up over a picture of Jon and me. I cook a special meal AND dessert. And once the children are in bed, I read to Jonathan the last 30 days worth of entries in my Husband Gratitude Journal (I highly recommend keeping one of these - I have found it very easy to overlook my hubby's good qualities and the things he does for me at times; keeping a list has opened my eyes to notice things about him I hadn't before, and that it turn has grown my love and respect for him). It has become a day I really look forward to, and as our children grow, I hope they will glean much from it too (studies show that the best thing parents can do for their kids is to love their spouse). Oh, and clean sheets on the bed is also very nice (especially when they don't get changed as regularly as they did before child 3 arrived....) ;)

Breakfast on the Beach

After our marathon bushwalking adventure in the Bunya Mountains last year, we have come to the awareness that the kids will enjoy beach holidays over bush ones for now :) Our recent camping at Maroochydore didn't contain any beach visits (everyone has been asking if we stayed at Cotton Tree Park - no we didn't, but we plan to in the future!) as the park we were at had plenty of things to keep  us entertained (and the hassle of getting everyone ready for and getting to the beach was enough to keep us put). Remembering how much the girls enjoyed the beach when we stayed in Caloundra during winter, we decided to have a dedicated trip to the beach this weekend! And as we're not fans of the heat and glare, we left home early and had breakfast on the edge of the sand under the trees on Golden Beach. Grandma Randall joined us.

After a breakfast of sausages and bread, the kids all played in a little grove of trees that had the perfect little 'cubby hole' for them to climb in while we packed the food away. Then into togs and to the water we went! Caleb was delightful - in he went and constantly fell over as the sand shifted beneath his feet. As he lost his balance he'd walk fast to keep upright and would be out in the deep! Abigail and Sarah preferred to stay in the shallows. It was lovely.

After a good long swim, Caleb went to sleep while the girls played in the sand (with empty honey buckets and disposable spoons!). Watching them was a joy - collecting water from the sea and bringing it up the beach to make birthday cakes etc. Eventually though we had to put an end to their play so they wouldn't get sunburnt (must get long sleeve rash tops for them).

Jon took Grandma back home and then we did a stint of second hand shopping before getting Grandma again for a McDonalds lunch. (On a side note: my flimsy low ironing board broke this week. Jon wanted to get me a tall solid one. We found a suitable one for $5 at the second hand shop. Score! Thank you to God for His perfect provision at a very blessed price.)

It was a great day and we hope to have many more like it in the summers ahead. The beach isn't so bad, after all! :)

Camping in Maroochydore

It feels like we've had lots of holidays the past couple of months, what with my mum visiting from NZ, Abigail's birthday, and then my friend Kim visiting from the UK on her way to NZ. But we've been eager to go camping again so we went camping for four nights up at Maroochydore over the weekend.

As usual, we planned to avoid the holidays, so being only a couple of weeks into the school term there weren't many others pitching tents around us. Wide open space was ours to enjoy. Caleb's running around was quickly put to an end when we discovered there were prickles. I hadn't brought shoes along as whenever I had tried them on him he would YELL and fuss until they were removed. However, we ended up going out and buying him a very lightweight thin pair which he happily accepted wearing. Shoes on one's feet are better than prickles in one's feet, after all. Caleb, for those who missed it, started walking about 9 1/2 months (!); he is now almost 11 months old.

We visited Underwater World one of the days after procuring adult tickets with our FlyBuys points. The seal show was definitely a highlight, and the escape stories of the otters were also very entertaining! Caleb was fascinated by all he saw; watching his face was a pleasure. The girls still remember visiting the Sydney aquarium and enjoyed spotting various sea creatures they remembered (the sharks and sting rays hold a particular 'scary' fascination). Abigail impressed us with her classification knowledge when she pointed out a lionfish!

For the most part, our time was spent on the Maroochy Palms campsite - there was a pool, jumping pillow and playground, and quite simply, lots of open space around us. Jon and I miss being able to walk at an adult pace now that Abigail and Sarah are out of the pram (and Sarah can walk painfully slow when she chooses, which is often!), so I especially enjoyed being able to get in some 'adult walking' again - even if it was only to the kitchen and toilet blocks! I read the third book in Janette Oke's Acts of Faith Series (I am a fan of Janette Oke's writing, and this series is particularly good - it fleshes out the book of Acts and has given me much food for thought); Jon got in some golf practice, and we both enjoyed chucking a few frisbees around together. Being out on a dark campsite also makes the stars more accessible for viewing so we used Jon's monocular to look at the moon and Venus; a telescope is on our 'to buy one day' list.

On our way home we stopped in Caloundra to see Grandma Randall. And we did something new - we all went to McDonalds for lunch! (We have recently 'discovered' Hungry Jacks and have been going every week or two with the kids to get ice creams and for them to play on the playground there - a treat everyone looks forward to; the girls call themselves hungry little jacks when they know we're going there; and they have dubbed McDonalds as Old McDonalds farm). Grandma seemed to quite enjoy the change in scenery and the kids enjoyed having a romp before being bundled into the car for the 'long' drive home. And home we are all again, sun kissed and ready to meet the demands of home again.